Last week the price per thousand board feet of lumber soared to an all-time high of $1,188, according to Random Lengths. Since the onset of the pandemic, lumber has shot up a whopping 232%. This supply and demand mismatch is largely a result of the pandemic. At the same time that state-mandated lockdowns caused mills to halt production, bored quarantining Americans were rushing to Home Depot and Lowe’s to buy up materials for do-it-yourself projects. That caused lumber inventory to plummet.
